An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination [calibre 4.99.5]

At Facebook’s lobbying office, exactly one mile from the White House, the policy team gathered at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, November 9, 2016. There was a long silence as everyone took their seats in a conference room. One employee had driven through the night back from Clinton’s official “victory” party at the Javits Center in Manhattan. Others hadn’t bothered to conceal their puffy, red-rimmed eyes.

Finally, Joel Kaplan spoke. He appeared as stunned as the rest of the team. Trump’s victory put Facebook and the nation into uncharted territory, he said. He warned that Facebook would be blamed for the swell of misinformation on the site ahead of the election. Some DC employees privately thought the company deserved the blame, that its lax policing of fake news had in fact helped elect Trump.

We’re in this together, Kaplan said.

He hadn’t endorsed the candidate. Many of his friends were “Never Trumpers,” Republicans who had taken vows to fight against Trump’s candidacy. And of course, it didn’t help that Sandberg, one of Clinton’s “Hillblazers” (the campaign’s designation for those who donated or raised at least $100,000 for the former secretary of state), had aligned herself so closely with the Clinton campaign.

The challenges in front of Facebook were clear. The company had built its influence operations in Washington to thirty-one lobbyists on the payroll, including internal and contract lobbyists. During Kaplan’s tenure, the office had established a better balance of Democrats and Republicans, including Greg Mauer, former aide to Republican House Speaker John Boehner; and Kevin Martin, the former Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The Washington office, however, was still more focused on getting politicians to use the site than lobbying on particular issues. In the parlance of Washington, Facebook’s goal was “defense” influence, to fend off regulations that threatened the growth of its business.

Kaplan made it clear he was ready to move to offense. Within three days of the election results, he had created an “administration pipeline,” a list of people with ties to Trump whom Facebook should try to hire directly or as consultants. Among them were Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, and Barry Bennett, a senior adviser to the campaign,1 who toured the office late in 2016. The two men had formed the lobbying firm Avenue Strategies right after the election and were pitching themselves as Trump experts capable of decoding and explaining the president-elect’s thinking on issues related to any matter of business and trade. Lewandowski promised that if Facebook put the new firm on retainer for $25,000 a month, he would use his access to Trump in its favor.

For many employees, it was surreal to see Lewandowski and Bennett walking the halls of the DC office. Kaplan had known Bennett, a friend and a familiar figure in Republican politics. But the combative Lewandowski, known for his sycophantic attachment to Trump, was new to national politics and lobbying and was a lightning rod for controversy. He had been accused of misdemeanor battery (a charge later dropped) for grabbing a reporter’s arm during a rally.2 Disliked by many on the campaign, Lewandowski was fired weeks before Trump secured the official nomination from the Republican Party.

The office was ambivalent about hiring Lewandowski and Bennett. They were uncertain of Trump’s position on tech. Some employees reasoned that the two men would be ideally positioned to help shield Facebook from the president’s unpredictable targeting of individual companies. But others protested, saying Lewandowski did not fit the company’s culture or brand. Ultimately, Kaplan was wary of Lewandowski, Washington staff said, and passed on the pitch.